My thoughts, problems, and ideas so far

Heya. I finally registered with the latest patch, mainly because I was hoping that one day I might be able to start making a campaign for the game, but maybe in the future. But in the meanwhile, I might aswell share my views with you people.

Alright, so Ill start with the negative ones. I dont think the game has been "optimized" so to speak? Ive yet to finish a single match that had more than two players, because after a certain point in the match the amount of people on the field, soldiers and workers alike, will start to make my game actually stutter, and thus unplayable. Is it just me?
Secondly, wall building. My strategy (Ive been playing mainly as the Romans, Im tired of the others already ) is to slowly build my army, while focusing the building effort on economy and defenses. The problem with this is that building walls, well, is hard. Im pretty sure though that this is actually one of the features still in the making? If so, nevermind my whining, a line of towers and velites at chokepoints works just as well.
Thirdly, the combat. I like the way it works, but Ive got one major problem: Skirmishers. Thanks to skirmishers, the battles tend to spread out everywhere, making it extremely annoying to watch as half my army is chasing some random javelineer into the distance while the rest are getting slaughtered. Is there something that could be done about this? Maybe Im doing something wrong?

Now, speaking of the skirmisher problem, I figured I could give my personal idea on how to fix it: Give skirmishers less HP. They are all lightly armored, and still require quite a lot of hits to kill. In order to make them not underpowered, maybe it could be possible to make them extremely weak against melee damage but not against projectile damage? This would make it even more important to keep your skirmishers away from the fight, but when they do get caught they would spread the whole battle all around.

I cant think of anything else at this instant, but Ill be sure to share if anything comes to mind. Cheers, I hope I posted this at the right place.

The cavalry can be used to deal with skirmishers, chase them off the field and then return for flanking attack. But if the cavalry was busy, then your own skirmishers can bring up the same effect, but maybe to a lesser extent.
Also, I think the formation system could be tweaked to improve units cohesion, so two infantry formations will crash into eachother, the cavaliers in two flanks and the skirmishers behind. Each unit type will focus on its goal only (infantry vs infantry, cavalry vs cavalry, skirmisher for support fire).

Each unit type will focus on its goal only (infantry vs infantry, cavalry vs cavalry, skirmisher for support fire).

Please, don't do that! This will make more units chase each other and less damage will be dealt.If you insist make it the default behavior but give the player the chance to change this in some kind of player options before the game.I can only beg you to rethink this.That is going the wrong way IMO and if you make it to be customized we'll see what players like, what is more efficient, how realistic fights look and how high the 'counter bonus' has to be to compensate.Don't reduce the players options and order priority even more!

There is a problem in 0ad, it's that if a unit chases another unit at the exact same speed, they will chase each other seemingly forever. Bad. And ranged units sometimes, to try to get "in range", will move forward,start attacking, realize the enemy is inbound, retreat, and repeat.

Ranged units, if chased, should be faster than melee units, and should know how to get a "comfort zone" that would give them enough time to fire and not be attacked.

Ranged units, if chased, should be faster than melee units, and should know how to get a "comfort zone" that would give them enough time to fire and not be attacked.

And I think both units should 'run' until out of stamina and the melee unit should have more stamina.I think the problem could be solved by removing minimum range from non-siege units.I think the issue is more general in nature as I posted here

And I think both units should 'run' until out of stamina and the melee unit should have more stamina.I think the problem could be solved by removing minimum range from non-siege units.I think the issue is more general in nature as I posted here

In future ranged units will be going to have an additional melee attack for short ranges. Like age of empires 3.

Ah, awesome. That would do the trick. But now that I think about it, I cant see why a skirmisher would go ahead and accept melee. I think that if the chaser manages to hit the skirmisher once, then the skirmisher would start fighting in melee, but otherwise it would try to run away.

Please, don't do that! This will make more units chase each other and less damage will be dealt.If you insist make it the default behavior but give the player the chance to change this in some kind of player options before the game.I can only beg you to rethink this.That is going the wrong way IMO and if you make it to be customized we'll see what players like, what is more efficient, how realistic fights look and how high the 'counter bonus' has to be to compensate.Don't reduce the players options and order priority even more!

I agree to what you said, although my suggestion didn't mean it should be the only option either.Normally, I tend to favor the realistic part of the game and forget about gameplay, so my suggestions can be dubious from time to time. My suggestion was to make that an in-game battle will look more like real-life ancient battles (set battle, ranks close up on each other and stuffs...) although ambush or skirmish battles will still be an option.

The plan is to have formations which will be more rigidly organized, rather than the melee chaos that we have now (though I imagine a lot of battles may have looked more like chaos). Making skirmishers work nicely is tricky, I think it is likely that horsemen will be needed to chase them down or using a covering screen of your own ranged units. This means that they should have a fairly weak attack though.

The plan is to have formations which will be more rigidly organized, rather than the melee chaos that we have now (though I imagine a lot of battles may have looked more like chaos). Making skirmishers work nicely is tricky, I think it is likely that horsemen will be needed to chase them down or using a covering screen of your own ranged units. This means that they should have a fairly weak attack though.

Yeah, when we have running & charging, cavalry will be able to run down skirmishers quite easily.

Yeah, when we have running & charging, cavalry will be able to run down skirmishers quite easily.

If they are able to hit an enemy running away at all (which is not the case a.t.m. since the attack will be broken up cause target out of range)

By the way... what about ranged cavalry?

I agree that chasing (running) could solve some things.

If an attack deals damage right at the beginning of the attack animation it could help melee units as well (and is realistic since the unit can arrange his attack while running)However, it will be a bit out of sync with the animation unless there will be a chasing animation with raised weapons.